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Month: January 2016

I reach out for a shopping cart at the local grocery. The cart I intend to grab is elbowed out of the way by another.

Since the store has 12 aisles, I can have as many as 12 items that are not sharing an aisle with anything else I want. That’s supermarket math. It’s telepathy. The items on my list know I am coming. The huddle up quickly and break so they are as far apart from one another as possible. They would all be on the bottom shelf but they know I would figure out their pattern so they spread out vertically as well as horizontally.

Ground Hog Day, 2015, in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, turned violent. Despite aliases like “woodchuck”, “whistle-pig” and “land-beaver,” the background check done by the Sun Prairie Police department didn’t dig deep enough. Even though Jimmy the Groundhog, was a known accomplice of Harry-the-Weasel and Buck-the-Badger, nothing was triggered in the profile compiled before the ceremony in the town square.

It was up to Sally to investigate how the accident really happened and, consequently, who would be disciplined. It irritated her enough that investigative duties weren’t in her job description but it irked her more that she already knew who did it. Sally, herself, was the guilty party.

It, really, was an accident— wasn’t a Freudian slip. It was not accidently-on-purpose. It was an accident and, for crying-out-loud, accidents do happen. Siggy can slip his parapraxis into the paper shredder.

When the truth came out all the amateur shrinks in this gossip ridden office would feed. They’d probably want her to lay on the couch in the break room and mumble some stream-of-consciousness gibberish. They might order psychological testing, a new background check and, quite possibly, contact Homeland Security. Continue reading Investigation